The Shocking Second HIV Epidemic Among U.S. Gay Men That No One Is Talking About

Some LGBT rights groups today are focused on topics that make for an easier sell to the rest of society than HIV/AIDS.

August 15, 2012 |

pop quiz, no cheating allowed: if you had to guess, would you say that HIV and AIDS rates among gay men in the United States are A) declining, B) remaining stable, or C) rising?

The correct answer is C) rising, at an alarming 8% per year . HIV incidence -- that is, the proportion of a population infected -- among gay men in the United States rises by that amount every year since at least 2001. Overall, this incidence, at 15.4% cumulatively, is just slightly lower than the incidence among gay men in Sub -Saharan Africa . And there’s a good case to be made that the real numbers are actually higher; for instance, we know they’re higher in some major metropolitan areas, where the incidence among MSM (men who have sex with men) is oneinfive. In San Francisco, it may be ashighasoneinfour.

Overall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that between 400,000 and 500,000 gaymen in the United States carried the virus in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available. Chillingly, gay and bisexual men are the only demographic to experienceariseinHIVinfection rates.

These are astonishing facts. The AIDS epidemic is now over three decades old and has taken over 600,000 lives in the U.S. alone. That’s more casualties than were seen in the entire Civil War. It’s also noteworthy that new infections in the U.S. are numerically stable overall, at roughly 50,000 a year over the last decade or so -- a number seemingly impervious to public or private prevention efforts.

Considering the carnage AIDS has inflicted on gay men in particular, it’s urgent that we examine what, if anything, can be done to save lives and to prevent the widespread damage of another generation -- today’s young men. The fewer than 1% of Americans who are gay or bisexual men between the ages of 13 and 29 comprise 27% of new infections.

TIMEHealthland describes the stakes in stark terms:

Public health experts have been concerned about the rising rates among MSM for years now, viewing the current epidemic as the second wave — the first having occurred in the 1980s. Today’s infections, they say, are affecting a new generation of men who didn’t live through the initial devastation of AIDS’ early days, when there were no drug treatments and a diagnosis was a death sentence. Public health messages about safe sex practices and testing targeted to gay men have waned in the intervening years, and now, some experts say, a new generation of at-risk men have to be educated about the disease.

There is no single reason why HIV rates have been rising again among gay men for at least a decade, or one tool that could hinder the process. The best we can do is identify contributing factors (with limited hard data), consider approaches to reach vulnerable demographics and help change behaviors.

Effective HIV therapy has been around since 1996, in the form of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) drugs. These drugs reduced mortality rates, previously near 100%, by 50% to 80%, and gave HIV patients a new lease on life.

An unintended side effect was that the drugs also reduced the visibility of the disease within the gay community. The “gay ghettos” of large cities were no longer the sole mournful province of the walking dead. The sense of urgency around the epidemic began to fade, while indicatorsofunprotectedsex, specifically the incidence of other sexually transmitted diseases, began to rise.

This is a win-win situation all around. You won't have to bitch about your healthcare costs anymore, and since you'll probably die at a young age, the world will be rid of another self-centered, dictatorial control freak.

If we are going to be down on fat people raising the cost of health care, what about gay marriage raising the cost of health care?

We must cover gay spouses. We must not preclude pre existing conditions. Gays engage in, from an actuarial point of view, much more expensive behaviour than eating a double cheeseburger once a week.

What's next? Are you going to tell women to stop giving BJs and flashing their tits? I don't want to live in a world like that.I'd much rather give up freedom of speech, frankly.

To your other point, never, have I ever advocated the government tell people whether or not they can take one up the butt, flash their tits, or smoking the pole. Far be it for me, basically a libertarian, to wish the government the power to tell you not to take it up the butt, or for you, to not smoke poles. I don't want to live in that world either. However, just as the previous poster pointed out, it is a FACT, that fat people cause health care costs to go up for society. It is also a FACT, that engaging in high risk sexual behaviour also increases health care costs for society.

If we are going to be down on fat people raising the cost of health care, what about gay marriage raising the cost of health care?

We must cover gay spouses. We must not preclude pre existing conditions. Gays engage in, from an actuarial point of view, much more expensive behaviour than eating a double cheeseburger once a week.

I think you are searching for a consequence to support your personal feelings. Since everyone should be covered and preexisting conditions don’t really apply anymore would not allowing Gay marriage lower the spread of aids?

It is bullshit for anyone to give ANY unsuspecting partner AIDS regardless of gender or preference.

I could be wrong, but there seems to be a lot of anger towards gays, in this post. I don't pass by DC all that often so this may be something I didn't know about you or I am completely misreading.

Completely agree, bullshit for anyone to do it. Was responding to a line in the OP that mentioned bisexual men. If you sensed anger in my post it was at the thought of a closet bi passing aids to a hetero female thereby exposing straight males to AIDS ( I have 3 sons).

I think you are searching for a consequence to support your personal feelings. Since everyone should be covered and preexisting conditions don’t really apply anymore would not allowing Gay marriage lower the spread of aids?

Really, do you think that Gays are going to honor, cherish, and remain monogomous to thier partners in a higher percentage than most straights?

I highly, and objectively doubt it. Therefore, the odds of at least one of them flying off the licentious rail and getting some of that bath house action is at least equal to a cheating straight getting some. I am merely looking at this as a mathemetician. You cannot convince me, that given the diseases propensity to be transmitted by blood contact with a fresh wound, that gay men are not more at risk based on how they like to take their sex.

You are also assuming, that gays will be perfectly honorable with their marrying practices. Suppose your young gay buddy comes down with HIV, and you are chatting it up at the bar. You are covered with great group coverage at your big corporate job. Solution!!! Eureka!!! Let's get married!, then you can get the coverage you need to fight it.

Not saying that there would be anything wrong with a rational, self serving indidual doing what they need to do to survive, it is only human, but from a mathematical standpoint, you are making a lot of assumptions about human beings that I find un credible to apply to the population at large, therefore, I can conclude with a great deal of certainty, that it is a "FACT", that engaging in high risk sexual behavior, inreases the health care costs of society. Gee, don't you want me or someone like me as Secretary of HHS, implementing Obamacare??? Big govt. rocks dude.